Credit unions attract people in the first place by the opportunity to get cash loan (credit) - quickly and relatively inexpensively. Principles of cooperative democracy and interaction were adequate to the purposes for which people joined credit unions. Credit union promotes the effective conservation of personal funds of its members, giving them the loans from the funds of the credit union, as well as the sharing of savings in education, housing, health care and other programs of social support and social development of its members. Typically new members of the credit union become citizens having suretyship or recommendations from their friends - members of the credit union. Credit unions perform the function of social protection in a vital for people sphere of financial services. They care about improving the financial literacy of the population, are working on the formation of their members and their employees. Credit unions historically formed as a special form of social support, initially taken upon themselves the social mission of protecting the interests of citizens in the field of financial services. U.S. credit unions have another significant difference from the credit cooperatives of farmers: the first have major proportion of short-term loans, the second - long and mostly in real estate.